Posttribulation rapture

Posttribulationists believe that, unlike the idea of a secret rapture in the pretribulation view, this text describes a visible, public appearing of Christ.

In the posttribulational rapture view, 1 Thessalonians 4:17 is describing all believers forming a single welcoming party and escorting Jesus to earth for his millennial reign.

[7] Posttribulationist Robert Gundry notes that phrasing in the texts suggests rapture after the tribulation, and not before as in the pretribulational view.

He further points out that 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10 indicates not a pretribulational rapture where Christians would be removed from suffering, but that the relief of Christians from their persecution would take place at the revealing of Jesus Christ with fire and judgment, which describes the coming of Christ at the end of the tribulation.

[7] This concept is exemplified by Revelation 3:10, in which Jesus promises the Philadelphian church, "I will keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.

While pretribulationists tend to speak of the millennium as a literal 1,000 year reign, it is not necessarily so with posttribulationism.

[15] The tribulation precedes the Second Coming, after which there will be a literal Millennium (1,000 year reign of Christ on earth).

[26] Gundry states that the redeemed multitude that comes out of the great tribulation constitutes the last generation of the Church.

[28] He lists Clement of Alexandria and Origen as the only early church writers who did not favor a posttribulational view.

[29] He further suggests that the earliness of posttribulationsism favors apostolicity and that the late origin of amillennialism and postmillennialism indicates human invention.

Posttribulationism believes that the rapture is an event at the end of the tribulation, and that the church will experience persecution during that time.

[33] Also contrasted with posttribulationism, pretribulationism views the parousia, or Christ's appearing, as a two-stage event; first in the rapture and then with his return to earth in the Second Coming.

[34] After competing with posttribulationism for dominance during the late 1800s, and by the 1920s, it had become the most widely accepted eschatological doctrine in the United States.

[34] Midtribulationism is a view that the church will be present on earth during the first half of Daniel's seventieth week (three and one-half years) and will experience tribulation.

[35] The church will be raptured halfway through the seventieth week and avoid God's outpouring of wrath.

[37] In The Church and the Tribulation, Robert Gundry suggests it is an unstable view that may be in line with pretribulationism or posttribulationism, depending on the other arguments assumed.